Excavations
Warning #1. I am not a good housekeeper.
Warning #2. Do not tell me how to be a better one. As a friend said his grandfather told him, when he came home from college ready to teach the old man how to run the ranch better, "Son, I already know how to ranch better than I can..." And I already know how to keep house better than I do.
That being said, recent posts by various friends here and abroad pushed me past the immobility of guilt, all the shoulds-but-aren't, ought-but-can't, into actually starting the excavation.
It's not going to be easy, and it's not going to be quick. But it got to the point where it was affecting my writing (unlike my organized engineer mother, I can write very well in a house composed mostly of piles cemented with dust--not having allergies has its own risks...) and that I just can't have. I have a heavy schedule for the next few years, and I can't afford to spend time struggling to unearth things from any farther down than a week. OK, maybe a month. At most.
So far I have succeeded in covering the bed with what was on the floor beside it, plus a big black trashbag full of things, some of which it was a struggle to discard. (but the cover of that Chico's catalog was *so pretty*. But there was an article in that 2004 Science that I don't want to forget...etc.) Now I have to choose between continuing to excavate that line of mess all the way to the closet (which would mean the bedroom door would open completely and getting to the closest woudl not mean stepping over a pile) or attacking the non-path from the door of my study to the deck, which now requires walking on some things (the original stepping-stone openings having lost out to slippage of piles.)
Reports to this topic may be sporadic, but maybe making one will energize me for the rest. (I loathe sorting, straightening, organizing...everything I pick up wants to start a story, or at least an argument...)
E.
Warning #2. Do not tell me how to be a better one. As a friend said his grandfather told him, when he came home from college ready to teach the old man how to run the ranch better, "Son, I already know how to ranch better than I can..." And I already know how to keep house better than I do.
That being said, recent posts by various friends here and abroad pushed me past the immobility of guilt, all the shoulds-but-aren't, ought-but-can't, into actually starting the excavation.
It's not going to be easy, and it's not going to be quick. But it got to the point where it was affecting my writing (unlike my organized engineer mother, I can write very well in a house composed mostly of piles cemented with dust--not having allergies has its own risks...) and that I just can't have. I have a heavy schedule for the next few years, and I can't afford to spend time struggling to unearth things from any farther down than a week. OK, maybe a month. At most.
So far I have succeeded in covering the bed with what was on the floor beside it, plus a big black trashbag full of things, some of which it was a struggle to discard. (but the cover of that Chico's catalog was *so pretty*. But there was an article in that 2004 Science that I don't want to forget...etc.) Now I have to choose between continuing to excavate that line of mess all the way to the closet (which would mean the bedroom door would open completely and getting to the closest woudl not mean stepping over a pile) or attacking the non-path from the door of my study to the deck, which now requires walking on some things (the original stepping-stone openings having lost out to slippage of piles.)
Reports to this topic may be sporadic, but maybe making one will energize me for the rest. (I loathe sorting, straightening, organizing...everything I pick up wants to start a story, or at least an argument...)
E.